Monday, August 18, 2014

I wanted to simulate the shallow depth of field that we get when photographing small objects. Photographers do this either with a lens that has a tilt function (i.e. special purpose lens called either a tilt-shift or perspective control lens) or by selectively blurring a portion of an image. It's not hard to do, but there is something we need to ensure in the original capture, and that is a high vantage point. This is a must and apart from shooting from above you also need a steady progressing depth from top to bottom. I have realized that it's possible to fake shallow depth of field from a ground level image but you would have to do an awful lot of masking if the furthest part of your scene is in the center of the image, and the result wont look as good anyway.

Thanks to built-in miniature effect in high-end DSLRs these days all you have to do is choose your frame from above, focus on your subject and click...the camera does conversion for you :)

I tried using this effect on video mode and it turned out that the video’s shot with a frame rate of 24 fps look nicer than the ones shot with a frame rate of 60 fps. With a frame rate of 24 fps the image looks sharper and the colors more vivid.

Here are some of my final images taken without a tilt-shift lens during our recent trip to the Grouse Mountain in Vancouver, BC. The effect isn't quite perfect, but its enough to fool some eyes ;)

Madhu Madhavan Photography

I have a passion to shoot still life and portraits. I took up digital photography few years ago and have come to realize that this hobby, that I chose as a means to escape the drudgery of the day is probably one that brings out the best in me. A tiny sliver of time caught for eternity, and worthy of notice, is what I work towards with every image I take.
There is no challenge that is too big for me and no job too small.
If you like the images I post here then please feel free to comment. All constructive criticism are welcomed.